Fans Shouldn’t Write Off an Official ‘Kenka Banchou Otome’ Localization Just Yet

During a talk with Spike Chunsoft’s North American branch, Noisy Pixel had to ask if the publisher had plans to bring the Spike Chunsoft developed visual novel Kenka Banchou Otome to the west.

Ari Advincula, Spike Chunsoft’s PR/Marketing Coordinator, answered the question, saying, “Whether or not something is in the works, we actually don’t know, but it is possible because it’s a part of Spike Chunsoft’s visual novel line-up.” She further added how localization will play a significant role, “If it [a western release of Kenka Banchou Otome] ever does happen, it will take time because of the amount of text for localization.”

As a follow-up question, we asked how long a typical localization project can take and were told that for the localization alone, it sometimes takes more than 8 months simply based on how much text there is to localize. However, with QA time and development issues that come up and need to be addressed, the localization process can take more than a year.

Now that Spike Chunsoft has opened a studio in North America, which just opened up last year, Ari mentioned that Spike Chunsoft wants to grow in more ways than one, “We are slowly introducing the west to what Spike Chunsoft is, and I believe that the visual novel branch of our portfolio of games is something that not many people know about.” Just recently, however, the studio has been able to release a couple of titles already, such as the visual novel adventure 428: Shibuya Scramble and a new entry in the Fire Pro Wrestling series, Fire Pro Wrestling World.

For now, the best thing Kenka Banchou Otome fans can do is kindly let Spike Chunsoft know they’d like to see the game in the west. Spike Chunsoft wants to hear from fans and wants to be more well-known outside of Japan, so any chance you get, share how much you enjoy Spike Chunsoft’s games.

In case you missed it, check out our review of Chaos;Child and 428: Shibuya Scramble.